Austria: Hitler's house will be remodeled, not torn down

VIENNA (AP) — The building where Adolf Hitler was born may be spared demolition, but emerge heavily disguised.

On Monday, Austria's interior minister, Wolfgang Sobotka, told the daily Die Presse that "the Hitler house will be torn down."

On Tuesday, he told reporters that the term "torn down" is debatable but the building, in the western town of Braunau, will be so thoroughly redesigned that it "will not be recognizable."

The "house," a large, three-story Renaissance-era structure, contains the apartment where Hitler was born.

Several members of a government-appointed commission on the future of the house said destroying it to end its attraction for admirers of the Nazi dictator would give an impression of trying erase part of Austria's history.